By Canadian Press

Financial support and Conservative leadership race; In The News for Dec. 17

Dec 17, 2019 | 2:30 AM

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Dec. 17.

What we are watching in Canada …

The country’s finance ministers are meeting in Ottawa today, with more federal help for resource-dependent provinces such as Alberta on the agenda.

All provinces say a federal program that cushions provincial budgets from sudden shocks needs to be more generous.

The fiscal-stabilization program is easier to change than the more complex equalization program, and amendments could be worth billions to provinces whose finances have been hit by low oil prices.

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They want the program revised to eliminate a $60-per-person cap on payments and to allow retroactive payments that could be worth billions to Alberta in particular.

Unlike equalization payments, fiscal-stabilization money comes straight from federal revenues, which made it easy for provincial premiers to agree earlier this month that expanding the program is a top priority.

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau will also face calls for more transfers of federal money for health care.

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Also this …

A senior Conservative instrumental in the party’s last leadership race says choosing a new leader at the upcoming convention in April is feasible, but would take a lot of work.

Dan Nowlan, who oversaw the 2017 leadership contest that ended in a photo-finish victory for Andrew Scheer, also says it’s disappointing that the party’s longtime executive director isn’t going to have a formal role to play in that process.

A new leadership race for the party informally started last week after Scheer announced his intention to resign. It was a move that wasn’t entirely unexpected, coming after months of both behind-the-scenes and very public pressure linked to his failure to win power in October.

But that all took a back seat to accusations that surfaced early last week that he’d used party funds to cover the costs of sending his kids to private school.

Caught up in the crossfire of that issue was the party’s executive director, Dustin Van Vugt, who has said he signed off on Scheer’s using the money in that way.

The overseers of the Conservative Fund, the party’s fundraising arm, apparently only learned of that decision last week and strenuously objected, leading to a fierce internal and ongoing fight.

Among the demands from the Fund are a line-by-line audit of Scheer’s expenses as leader that would include a deeper dive into contracts approved during his tenure, a source close to the Fund told The Canadian Press, on condition of anonymity so as to discuss internal Conservative party affairs.

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ICYMI (in case you missed it) …

The sex scandal involving Prince Andrew is having repercussions at a high school that bears his name in the Halifax area.

The principal of Prince Andrew High School in Dartmouth confirmed Monday he’s heard from members of the community who say the school’s name should be changed.

“There are people  … who believe that (the name) no longer reflects the values of the community,” Brad McGowan said in an interview.

“They’re angry. What I’m hearing them saying is, ‘You’re asking young people to come to a school that carries the name of somebody who possibly has done something to harm young people.’ “

The 59-year-old prince, who is the Queen’s second son, is facing allegations he had sex with an underage girl between 1999 and 2002.

Earlier this month, Virginia Roberts Giuffre told the BBC she was a sex-trafficking victim and alleged she slept with Prince Andrew three times when she was 17 — at the direction of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a New York City jail cell in August.

Despite the controversy, McGowan said he’s also heard from people who feel the school’s name, which has been part of the school since it opened in 1960 — the year of Prince Andrew’s birth — should not be changed.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

House Democrats laid out their impeachment case against President Donald Trump, a sweeping report accusing him of betraying the nation and deserving to be ousted, as key lawmakers began to signal where they stand ahead of this week’s landmark votes.

What Democrats once hoped would be a bipartisan act — only the third time in U.S. history the House will be voting to impeach a president — is now on track to be a starkly partisan roll call Wednesday. No Republicans are breaking with the president, and almost all Democrats are expected to approve the charges against him.

A raucous town hall Monday in the Detroit suburbs put on display the nation’s wrenching debate over the unconventional president and the prospect of removing him from office. Freshman Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin was both heckled and celebrated as she announced her support for impeachment.

“There’s certainly a lot of controversy about this,” Slotkin acknowledged to the crowd of 400. “But there just has to be a moment where you use the letter of the law for what it’s intended.”

Trump faces two articles of impeachment brought by Democrats. They say he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election and obstructed Congress by aggressively trying to block the House investigation from its oversight duties as part of the nation’s system of checks and balances.

The president “betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections,” says the 650-page report from the House Judiciary Committee. He withheld military aid from the ally as leverage, the report says, and ”Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

Thousands of university students flooded the streets of India’s capital, while a southern state government led a march and demonstrators held a silent protest in the northeast against a new law giving citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India illegally to flee religious persecution in neighbouring countries.

The protests in New Delhi followed a night of violent clashes between police and demonstrators at Jamia Millia Islamia University. People who student organizers said were not students set three buses on fire and police stormed the university library, firing tear gas at students crouched under desks.

Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party said opposition parties were using the students as pawns.

Modi’s government says the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which was approved by Parliament last week, will make India a safe haven for Hindus and other religious minorities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But critics say the legislation, which for the first time conditions Indian citizenship on religion, violates the secular constitution of the world’s largest democracy.

At Jamia Millia Islamia University on Monday, thousands stood outside the locked-down campus. Inside, hundreds of students took part in a peaceful sit-in, holding placards denouncing the injuries of dozens of students the night before.

Mujeeb Ahmad, a 21-year-old Arabic major, returned to campus Monday to join the sit-in and retrieve the book bag he lost fleeing the library, where he had been studying for exams.

“We thought we were safe in the library,” he said, adding that he and others had locked the library doors from the inside. Policemen broke them down, and at least one officer fired tear gas, he said, holding up an empty canister he said he picked up from the library floor.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Dec. 17, 2019.

The Canadian Press